THE WAY THINGS GROW

     How can a maximum number of people benefit from an experience that has some of its value tied up in being undiscovered? I find this a perplexing question. All great movements begin as small happenings. A handful of people get excited over something new and they spread the word. The group evolves. And as additional participants receive benefit, they, in turn, spread the word, and the group grows bigger still- and so on.
     But at some point, the sheer volume of people can't help but change the nature of the original experience. A commercial, cookie-cutter approach seems the obvious answer, but the lack of authentic spontaneity initially available threatens to dilute and diminish the enjoyment and purpose. It's a conundrum. Anything worthwhile grows a following, but the following itself can become a problem.
     So what to do? Embrace the change, I suppose, and do the best job possible to accommodate the growing group. As long as the the mission and intention remain pure and the point is to be helpful to anyone seeking help, then there's nothing for it but adaptation and adjustment.
     I sometimes want to return to the small beginnings of things when all feels uncorrupted and simple. I want to reject the bigness of what grows up. But it's forward and outward in life, forward and outward forever until we die. We cannot shrink or go back. There is nothing for us in the past. All of our life and our lessons are before in the unshaped and unknown form of whatever may come.

I am ok with the way everything in life changes. I look back fondly, but do not wish to repeat the past.